


The Space Between

by ice_connoisseur



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Everyone's a musician, F/M, How much of this stems from my obsession with Gwendoline Christie's fingers?, Most Of It, POV Alternating, Piano AU, enemies to duets to lovers, if we're being honest, there are no larks within, this is a vaughn williams free zone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22641451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_connoisseur/pseuds/ice_connoisseur
Summary: Jaime Lannister is the greatest pianist of his generation, and years of playing second fiddle to his sister's singing career won't ever negate that fact.  He'd never have met Brienne of Tarth if not for Ned Stark, and thank the gods the old man died before Jaime ever had to do anything as humiliating asthankhim for it.Aka a classical musicians AU in which Jaime and Brienne are both pianists, Catelyn Stark manages the Royal Northern Symphony Orchestra, Robb is its reluctant conductor, and the only person who wanted any of this was Ned, who promptly died before having to deal with the fallout.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 25
Kudos: 51





	1. Spring

**Author's Note:**

> This is a strange amalgamation of worlds, because on the one hand I wanted to keep it Westeros-based (not least because there is actually a Royal Northern College of Music in the UK, and I know _just_ enough about it to not be able to fudge the rest for fiction), while on the other hand I wanted to include music I know and love. So this is somehow a universe in which Chopin, Dvorak, Bach and the rest all lived and composed in Westeros or Essos at various points in time. 
> 
> Apart from Vaughn Williams. This is my weird AU amalgamation, and if I decide the lark will not ascend then the bloody lark will not ascend. 
> 
> Title from a quote often attributed to Claude Debussy - _“Music is the space between the notes.”_

The auditorium at Winterfell Symphony Hall is smaller and less ornate than the grand and sprawling theatres of King’s Landing, but Jaime had loved it completely the very first moment he saw it. Tywin had scorned it, of course, for its location, for its lack of finery, for its association with something so plebian as a _music college –_ never mind that the Royal Northern College of Music predated most of its peers in the South. But Jaime hadn’t cared then, and even now, years later and with Catelyn Stark’s dour assistant and her sour expression as his companions, he can’t suppress the smile that breaks out over his face as they slip into the back of the hall and look down on the empty stage.

The assistant misinterprets it, of course. Miserable woman.

“It might not be what you’re used to,” she scowls down at him – and Jaime isn’t a small man, but this creature had a clear inch on him _at least_ – “But you’ll find can be just as grand as anything you might have in King’s Landing.”

It’s a lie, of course, and she knows it; no one, not even this fool, could look at the hall – with the serviceable rows of seats and boxy walls, the towering organ pipes behind the stage so completely at odds with the golden chandeliers hanging above the audience that are the sole nod to ornamentation – and find it aesthetically comparable to the sweeping splendour of the Royal Aegon Hall or the Baelor Rooms, or even the cavernous Dracarys Theatre. But it was said that a pin dropped on the stage at Winterfell could be heard hitting the floor by someone sitting in the very back row of the gallery, right up in the gods; that a note, pitched just right, could hang for days if left undisturbed. 

And that is why Jaime is here. 

Not that he wants to give _her_ the satisfaction of admitting to the silent thrill that had gripped him the moment he saw the concert grand, set out centre stage, waiting for him. 

“I’m sure it will do,” he shrugs, aiming for nonchalance and overshooting.

The woman huffs again and Jaime doesn’t bother trying to hide his eye roll. Who even is she, anyway, that she doesn’t even try to hide her disdain towards such a high-profile guest? Even Catelyn Stark had managed that much when she’d greeted him earlier.

It isn’t hard to guess at the woman’s story, anyway. A failed musician, never quite good enough for the career she’d wanted, relegated to the role of glorified secretary and cursed to spend her time working for those more talented than she could have ever hoped to be. Cello – that would explain the link with Catelyn Stark - or brass, maybe trombone, if he had to guess; though the first thing he’d noticed, before she started scowling, were her fingers, long and slender and strong enough to be the envy of any self-respecting pianist.

Anyway. It doesn’t matter. It is a tale far too common to be of any interest, and he puts it out of his mind entirely the moment she finishes the tour and deposits him firmly back outside the main entrance, practically slamming the door shut behind him

So much for a warm welcome.

* * *

The stupid part is, he’d been _excited_ when Ned Stark had first approached him, just over a year before. It had been at the Baelor Rooms, one of Tywin’s society recitals with fancy drinks and tiny complicated finger food afterwards. He and Cersei had performed, of course, mostly tedious operetta, because Seven forbid they confuse Tywin’s sponsors with anything too meaty. The after-concert soiree was no more thrilling, and Jaime had spent most of it skulking in a corner, avoiding small talk and waiting for the point when he could slip off without his father noticing and complaining. And then suddenly Ned Stark had been there, glass in hand, looking even more unsettled and uncomfortable than Jaime himself felt. 

“You played well,” he’d said in his grave way, which, well. What was Jaime meant to say to that? Of course he’d played well; that’s what he _did._

If Stark was put off by his lack of response he didn’t let it show.

“I was wondering if you would be interested in coming to play for us,” he’d continued, because apparently small talk was for southerners and cowards - and say what you like about the man but Ned Stark was neither of them - and then, when Jaime’s eyes had automatically flickered in Cersei’s direction, “No, not your sister. Just you.”

And that’s when the excitement had started, coiling deep in his belly where he made damn sure the older man wouldn’t see it. Because by _us_ Stark had to mean Winterfell Hall, that grey behemoth of the north, as derided for its appearance as it was lauded for its acoustics. And _just him,_ not clinging on behind Cersei’s skirts…

“What were you thinking?” Jaime had asked coolly, as if this wasn’t the first time a conductor of Ned Stark’s standing had shown an interest in his solo career in _years_. “A recital? Or a concerto?”

“An artist in residence program,” Ned had said, like it was nothing. “A few weeks, maybe three months, through next summer. Solo recitals, a few bits with the orchestra. Our summer school will be running then too, so workshops and masterclasses if you’re willing to take them.”

Which was…mind-blowing, actually. Cersei would be furious, Tywin even more so. But Winterfell was far enough from King’s Landing that there was zero chance of his father interfering – even putting aside the distance, the animosity between him and Ned Stark was legendry, which would only add to his anger, except…

“Why me?” Jaime asked suspiciously. “Are you trying to get one over my father?”

“We need a name,” Ned had been blunt, unabashed. “A big name, to draw attention and audiences. Everyone I’ve asked so far has said no; it would mean missing the Proms, of course. But any Proms work you do is always with your sister, so I thought the promise of solo orchestral work might be tempting enough to negate that.” He’d paused, then, and smiled a most un-Stark-like smile. “Annoying Tywin Lannister is just a bonus.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jaime had agreed, because he might not be his brother but even _he_ knew you shouldn’t be too eager until money was on the table. 

Stark hadn’t seemed put off by his lack of enthusiasm. “I’m here until the end of the week, staying at the Tower Hotel. You can reach me there and we can meet to go over the details somewhere a bit quieter.”

He’d held out his hand and Jaime had shaken it almost automatically, not realising he’d been slipped a business card until the other man was already disappearing into the crowd. Cersei appeared at his shoulder a moment later; maybe Stark was cleverer than Tywin liked to give him credit for, after all.

“What was _that_ about?” Cersei had asked, sipping her drink with a careful disinterest that Jaime knew meant she was desperately curious.

“Nothing much,” he’d shrugged with equal coolness. “He was just complimenting us on the concert.”

Cersei snorted as delicately as she did anything else, but it was an uncomplicated enough lie that she didn’t question it further, drawing him back to the group she’d been talking with; a wealthy woman from Rosby who wanted to hire them to play at her birthday gala. For the rest of the evening, pretending to listen to talk of set lists and dates, Jaime could feel Ned Stark’s card in his pocket, digging into the flesh of his thigh, persistent and insistent. 

He held out less than a day before ringing with his _yes._ Tyrion would have been appalled. They met in Stark’s hotel bar to pass a surprisingly enjoyable couple of hours hashing out the early details - dates, possible pieces, the relative merits of Tchaikovsky versus Rachmaninoff - and they’d parted on good terms, another handshake and even a _smile_ from the uptight northerner; really, what was the world coming to?

They’d exchanged a few emails, in the weeks after that, firming up plans and considering new ideas, and then nothing, and nothing, and nothing, until finally, suddenly, the news of Ned Stark’s diagnosis and prognosis, filtering through the music community in a wave of shock and sorrow that was mostly genuine. 

Not even six months on from their meeting in King’s Landing he was dead. 

Which left Jaime…where, exactly? He’d thought, briefly, about attending the funeral, but decided against it, in the end; he’d only met the man a handful of times, after all, and only twice with anything approaching cordiality. And then there was all the fuss around Tywin’s _In Memoriam_ concert – and hats off to Cersei, really, to see her warble her way through _Ave Maria_ and finish with that single perfect tear on her cheek was a masterclass in acting, she hated the Starks as completely as Tywin – so it seemed better all round to wait for _them_ to contact _him_.

Except summer faded to autumn and he heard nothing. Cersei started to make noises about planning their spring season; Ned Stark had talked about an early summer start to their program in Winterfell but they’d never fixed on dates, and who knew what even _counted_ as early summer in the North? 

It was no good. He bit the bullet, emailing Catelyn directly, explaining the conversations he and Ned had been having earlier in the year. He even, after a few minutes thought, clarified that they’d never formalised a contract – let Catelyn have some wriggle room, if she wanted to change things, though gods knew she would probably be relieved about not having to deal with an entire summer program so soon after losing her husband. He was practically doing her a favour, really.

Which didn’t explain the curtness of the correspondence that followed, but never mind. Grief did funny things to people. It didn’t matter. It was organised, he was going, Cersei and Tywin were predictably furious, and Ned Stark’s ghost had everything he’d hoped for.

* * *

So yes, he’d been…maybe not excited, exactly, but. Looking forward to it, at least. Which is why it is such an unpleasant shock when he realises, over the first few days, just how displeased every other person at Winterfell is about his presence. It isn’t just Catelyn Stark’s coolness or her assistant’s blatant dislike; Robb Stark, stepping into his father’s shoes to conduct despite the fact he’s a scant few years out of music college and trained as a violinist not a conductor besides, is brooding and full of quiet disapproval poorly hidden beneath a thin veneer of professionalism, and the rest of the orchestra seem inclined to follow suit. 

Which, fine. If that is how they want to play it. It’s not like Jaime actually _cares_ about what they think, only how they play, and he isn’t so churlish that he can’t admit that they play very, very well indeed. Robb is young but his father’s reputation was obviously well earnt, and the Royal Northern Orchestra is a finely disciplined machine despite their conductor’s relative youth and inexperience. 

Still. It makes for a lonely time. He’s _bored_ , which doesn’t help; he came north earlier than he needed to, by rights, anything to get away from the cloying heat of King’s Landing in summer, where Tywin’s disapproval and Cersei’s _hurt_ were liable to ambush him at any moment. It had seemed like a good idea, at the time, but instead it has left him stuck in a place where _no one_ seems to like him, rather than just a select few, and with no distractions to boot. 

He can’t even play as much as he wants to. There is no piano in his hotel room, of course, and the sulky assistant seems to be dragging her feet about issuing him with a pass for the college complex that would let him come and go to use the practice rooms freely. He has to meet her in the entrance each time instead, and even then she escorts him to an instrument like she doesn’t trust what he might do if left to roam around the building unattended. She thankfully at least doesn’t insist on sitting in the room while he practices, but he wouldn’t put it past her to be loitering in the corridor outside, ready to strike at the first sign that he isn’t dedicating himself wholly and completely to the agreed repertoire. 

He tries to entertain himself on those trips by talking at her – and it is _at_ her, she never once offers a response or contribution of her own beyond the occasional non-committal _hmm_ – on any and every subject that comes into his head. If his incessant rambling bothers her she never lets on, but thank the _Seven_ by the end of the second week she does at last present him with his own keycard, VISITOR stamped boldly across the front – like he was in any danger of forgetting that – so either his chatter has been annoying her after all, or Catelyn had finally realised just how much time her batshit crazy assistant was spending marching him about the place and had interceded on his behalf. 

Which brings him to now, letting himself into Winterfell through a side door late on a Sunday afternoon. The building is quiet for once, no concerts or performances that evening and no rehearsals scheduled until the following day. He grins to himself when the door lock flashes green and clicks open, picturing the grim assistant’s face; whatever illicit activities she feared he may do with such trust, he doubts sneaking into the building to play the bloody piano in his down time ever factored into it.

But that is exactly what he is doing. It’s been a long couple of weeks of heavy sighs and disapproving looks; he’s never before felt both so ignored and so judged all at the same time, and he grew up with Tywin Lannister for a father, so that was really saying something. His skin feels too tight, hot and prickly. He’d tried, fruitlessly, to work through it back at the hotel, pacing around his room, taking a turn in the gym and swimming pool, but it was a futile effort. All his life he’s only ever known one method of relief to this sort of agitation. 

He needs quiet and privacy. What he needs more than anything is to be back in King’s Landing, for all that he’d been so desperate to escape the city mere days before, safely ensconced in his soundproofed studio with his Valyrian grand and his own company. He wonders, sometimes, if other musicians ever appreciate just how lucky they are, to have their instrument travel with them, to not be learning a new beast, with all the assorted quirks and foibles, at every new venue. When he plays the piano became an extension of himself; he gives himself over to it completely, and at times the betrayal of jumping from one keyboard to the next feels worse than leaving Cersei behind ever has. 

There is no Valyerian in Winterfell, but the Mikken Concert Grand is a fair second choice. He’d never played on one before coming north, it isn’t a make that’s ever gained popularity in the south - which is odd, now he thinks about it, since it is easily as fine as any Tobho or Volanti he’s played there. 

Such are his thoughts as he makes his way down the corridor to the main auditorium. The obstinate assistant would be steering him off to one of the practice rooms by now, guarding the Mikken like he was a villainous knight lusting after it’s maidenly virtue, but he doesn’t want some sad little upright, not today. He wants the space of the great hall and the power of the concert grand, to lose himself in the sound so completely that by the time he comes back up for air the world will feel at peace again.

His pace quickens at the prospect. He’s only played the Mikken a couple of times since his arrival, and then only with at least Robb Stark and a few other musicians in attendance, if not the full orchestra. He’s not even _begun_ to explore just how much it can do. 

He’s so distracted by his thoughts, and the acoustics of the concert hall are so perfectly balanced, that it is only when he opens the door to slip inside that he hears the music.

And such [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3qHO9aOQYM).

It’s Chopin, bloody Chopin, his quiet and constant love despite a lifetime of his father’s sneering at such sentimental drivel and Cersei’s complete lack of interest in singing it. But that had never mattered, he’d known it and loved it through the best and worst years of his life, and still it catches him him unawares, sometimes, hit by a wall of music so solid it can literally leave him breathless.

Jaime forgets his momentary flash of irritation at finding his intended destination already occupied; forgets that he had had any thought of playing at all. He sinks silently, thankfully, into a seat a few rows back from the stage, safely hidden in the shadows of the unlit auditorium. The piano is centre stage and open full stick; his own entry, through the main auditorium door at the foot of the stage, has gone completely unnoticed by the player, their sight obscured by the piano lid, and any noise he made is lost in the fullness of the music. 

But he can see her clearly. Catelyn Stark’s giant assistant, her head bent forwards over the keys, eyes half closed though he can see music on the stand in front of her. Her expression is beatific; all the things Jaime himself feels every time he plays a Nocturne and has never known how to put into words playing out across her suddenly open features. And to think he’d thought her of her as _sulky._

He drops into the familiar melody, raw and unpolished and _honest_ , losing himself in in completely, until at last the piece builds and dies and there is only silence. Jaime sits frozen for a long, pregnant moment, suddenly unsure. Such music should be met with raucous ovation, rose petals raining down, beaming bows and calls for encore after encore. His own measly, lonely applause would be a mockery. 

Maybe he shifts, maybe he breathes too loudly; maybe she just finally comes back to herself enough to realise she is no longer alone. Whatever it is, the woman’s head suddenly snaps up, and her eyes met his. Her face turns a blotchy red and she scrambles away from the piano, nearly tripping over the stool in her haste. 

“What are you _doing_?” she hisses, grabbing the bundle of music and hugging it to her chest protectively. 

“Listening,” Jaime says stupidly, blinking in confusion at the abrupt change in the atmosphere. “Can you play something else? Or the same again, I don’t mind, I missed the first page anyway.”

She scowls at him, the harsh lights picking out every line of the anger writ large across her face.

“I’m not here for you to laugh at, Lannister,” she snaps, which, right, ok, not the response he’d expected, but fine, he can work with that. Except she is already halfway off the stage, striding into the wings on those ridiculous long legs, before his brain catches up enough to start propelling his body forward.

“Hey, wait!” he calls, scrambling up onto the stage and reaching out to grab her arm. She spins around before he can make contact, but she must see the intent of his gesture because she glares and takes another step backwards, away from him.

“What, Mr Lannister?” she snaps and this close Jaime can read her expression better; she isn’t just pissed about having her practice disturbed, a mood he knows too well and hates even more. 

She’s embarrassed. Mortified, even, and trying and failing to hide it behind her anger. 

“That was incredible,” he says, as simple and sincere as he knew how to be. “Genuinely. Some of the best playing I’ve ever heard.”

She’s still eyeing him dubiously, but there is something else there too. Hope, want, the deepest desire of any musician; to make something beautiful and to share it, to have their skill and craft recognised by another who understands its complexity. 

“Where did you learn to play?” he continues, because if forcing conversation is the only way he is going to keep her on this stage then that’s what he’s going to do. 

“My father taught me, when I was small,” she admits begrudgingly after a moments pause, having apparently examined the question and been unable to find anything too distasteful in it. “And then I had a private teacher, for a while.”

“Who?” demands Jaime, because whoever it was must have been a fool not to see what she had, to not push her beyond where she’s ended up.

“Mr Goodwin. Georg Goodwin.”

It’s a vaguely familiar name but he can’t place it; it is certainly no Lewyn Martell or Arthur Dayne, nor any of the other greats that someone who can play like that should have studied under. 

But she is eyeing him still, wary, and Jaime realises with a sudden uncharacteristic flash of insight that his next words _matter._ She doesn’t trust him, has no reason to trust him, but on the other hand - and this is the frustrating part, the part that’s been bothering him ever since he arrived in this godsforsaken place – she also has no reason _not_ to trust him. If he can just figure out the right combination of words to make her see that then maybe she’ll sit back down and let him listen some more.

“Then he did an excellent job,” he settles on. And then, because that didn’t sound quite right, “You’ve obviously worked very hard.” Too patronising? “You’re very talented.” Ouch.

Something obviously works, though. Her posture relaxes slightly and there is even the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, though he rather suspects it is more because she is laughing at his fumbled attempts at conversation.

But, “thank you,” she says in apparent sincerity – as she should, he thinks with a beat of disgruntlement, he’s the best pianist of his generation and probably the ones either side as well, she should be _grateful –_

“Will you play again?” he asks instead, stamping down on what Tyrion would call his Lannister instincts. Because that’s what he wants, more than anything, more than he wants to play himself right now; he wants to be lost in music too beautiful to leave room in his mind for anything else. 

For a long pause she does nothing but stare at him with an inscrutable expression. Whatever she sees (or doesn’t see, who can tell, stubborn woman) is apparently enough, because she gives a short, jerking nod, and steps past him to return to the piano.

“I’ll turn for you,” he offers in a rush of noise that is more exhaled relief than actual words. She glances at him again, incredulous – of course, this woman who plays in secret to no audience, what use would she have for someone else to turn her pages, she’ll turn her own if she needs to – but doesn’t object when he seats himself at her left. 

She shuffles with the music for a moment before selecting a score; a battered, dog-eared book of Bach Preludes and Fugues, with a broken spine and spidery pencil marks covering every page. She spares him one final, puzzled, glance, and [begins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2LnXJvWnfQ).

He finds himself transfixed by her fingers as she plays. He’d noticed them in passing before, almost incidentally, but only now does he recognise them for the wonder that they are. Long and slender, her hands are as huge as the rest of her, each one sure and strong in its place over the keys. Her whole body is a part of her playing, her size and reach used to its full advantage. Sitting this close Jaime can appreciate the raw strength she wields, not dissimilar to his own style. She doesn’t coax the sound out in a way many pianists do, especially women; she _commands_. She is far from perfect - there are little slips and errors, bad habits that any half decent tutor would have cured her of long ago – but amongst the sheer force of her playing it doesn’t matter.

And she loves it. He’d known that the minute he walked in to the strains of Chopin in the air, no one could play like that unless they did, it was one of those immeasurable qualities that separated a good musician from a great one, but this close he can feel it in every shift of her body besides his, see it in the flicker of a smile that lurks at the corner of her mouth. 

The afternoon passes in a blur; every time a piece finishes she pauses and glances at him, though he can never tell if she is waiting on his judgement or permission to continue or stop. He fills those moments by selecting a fresh piece each time, sometimes at random and sometimes with intent, hurrying her on out of fear that if he allows her too much time to think she might stop altogether. 

Eventually, though, she finishes another and, for the first time, drops her hands to her lap with a weary, contented sigh. She rolls her head back, stretching her neck muscles taut, and then glances over at him with a wry smile. 

“I’ve not played like that in a long time,” she confesses, suddenly shy. “Thank you.”

He blinks in surprise – why is _she_ thanking _him? –_ but before he can speak she rushes on, her face flushing again. “I’m sorry. We’ve been here hours. Would you like to?”

The strange, pensive bubble they’d been trapped in together dissipates with a pop, and the rest of the world suddenly floods back into existence as she gestures awkwardly to the keys and starts to stand. 

“No,” he frowns, and then, at her incredulous look, again more firmly. “No.”

“You obviously came here to practice,” she protests.

“No, just to play.” He says it without thinking to clarify the distinction – but from the quick look she slants his way, he doesn’t need to. She is gathering her things, making to leave, and he casts around blindly for a reason to keep her just a little bit longer, to enjoy the last lingering vestiges of the companionship that the music had woven between them.

“Making you play was a far better anyway. I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

She gapes at him, obviously thrown by the sudden change of topic, but it isn’t a no, and that is all the permission he needs to chivvy her off the stage and out the door before she has time to realise what he is doing – or notice that, for the life of him, he cannot remember her name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music linked in this chapter:  
> \- Chopin's [Nocturne in F minor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3qHO9aOQYM)  
> \- Bach's [Prelude and Fugue in Ab major](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2LnXJvWnfQ) (I struggled to find a recording of this one on youtube that I really liked, but this one probably came closest)
> 
> I have a complete rough draft of this, but I make no promises on update speed; each chapter needs heavy editing, I keep getting sidetracked searching for youtube links to the music, and work is about to go crazy. Which is why I decided to start posting it at gone midnight on a Sunday, obviously.


	2. Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...sliding back into your inboxes with an update on this a measley eight months later... In my feeble defence, in that time I've bought a house, moved into said house, started a new job, started renovating afore mentioned house, started _another_ new job, and taken part in my first fic exchange. And there's also been that pesky pandemic going on; you might have heard of it. 
> 
> Anyway. I am still plugging away at this, and I have every intention of seeing it through. Things are hopefully a little calmer this end for a bit now, so here's hoping.
> 
> Thank you everyone who read and enjoyed the first chapter, and especially those who commented and left kudos; I genuinely treasure each and every one.

Which is how Brienne finds herself in a small pub she has never set eyes on before, despite it being less than a ten minute walk from Winterfell’s main doors. It’s cosy in an understated way, tucked away down one of Winter Towns many winding side streets, built in the old traditional style with a large open fire and thick stone walls designed to stave off even the worst Northern winter. But for now the fires are unlit, and the windows and doors are thrown open to the warm summer air. 

And she is sitting at a little table in front of one such window. Opposite _Jaime Lannister_.

He’s sprawled in the opposite seat, nursing a cider with an easy smile on his face, looking for all the world like he passes every evening this way. Which, maybe he does. In the past couple of weeks he’s spent five to ten minutes a day chattering incessantly to her as she escorted him to whichever practice room was vacant; that left a lot of time for lounging in pubs eyeing up passing women.

Which doesn’t explain why he is here with _her._

It makes her uneasy, wrongfooted; the comfortable atmosphere the music had wound between them has vanished completely. Sansa told her once that she has a tendency towards scowling, when she was uncomfortable, and Brienne can feel it now, sticking to her face like tar. 

“You look like a Silent Sister in a whore house,” Jaime observes, and Brienne feels herself flush, equal parts mortified and indignant.

“I’m not staying here for you to make snide comments,” she snaps. She would have done, once, that fatal combination of awkward politeness and a wicked case of insecurity keeping her placidly in place, nodding and smiling along on the outside like she was in on the joke.

Not anymore. She’s spent too much time in the North, now, too much time with the Starks, with Margaery Tyrell, with the lethal combination that was Jon Snow’s girlfriend Ygritte and her cousin Tormund. She’ll never have their fire or flare, but she knows her own worth, has drawn her own lines and guards them well. 

But Jaime doesn’t splutter false apologies or mock her for not getting the joke. A flash of surprise crosses his face and he reaches out with one hand, placating, keeping her in her seat. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding genuine. “I didn’t mean…it was a joke.”

Brienne settles back in her chair, still eyeing him suspiciously. 

“Why am I here?” she presses; outside the quiet of the auditorium, with the rest of the world firmly re-established, the absurdity of it all hits her full on.

“Are you always this direct?”

“Are you always this annoying?”

Jaime sighs heavily, resting both hands on the table in front of him. “I invited you because I was hungry, and because I’ve not had a proper conversation with anyone who isn’t Robb Stark since I got here. And all he wants to talk about is bloody Mahler.”

“Robb is an excellent conductor,” Brienne says stiffly, and Jaime sighs again.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t. That doesn’t mean his obsession with Mahler isn’t wrong.”

Which…he might have a point about, in fairness. Sansa liked to mock him for it; even Catelyn has been known to make the occasional jest on the subject at her son’s expense. 

Jaime is still grinning at her, obviously taking her silence as confirmation of a victory. She glances around the pub, searching for something – anything – that she can use to change the subject, and coming up short.

“I’ve never been here before,” she says lamely, at last; this is _exactly_ why she hates one-on-one conversations, she’s never been any good at them. 

“I like to avoid the music haunts,” Jaime says, shrugging, and a part of her wants to pull him up on that, press for more, because there is nonchalance written through every line of his body and his voice is flippant, casual, and it feels…practiced. Forced. But she’s too slow, as always, grappling for words that never come easily, and he’s already moved on. “Found this place a week or so back and thought the food looked good.”

And the food _is_ good – but so, shockingly, is the company. Jaime is funny, and warm, and sharp, and yet despite all of that the more they talk the less tongue-tied she feels. Even if his opinions about Hanon do turn out to be _all wrong._ There is none of the smug pride or self-aggrandising she would have expected, if she had ever thought to expect anything at all. In the end she is the one to bring up Arthur Dayne, speaking wistfully of the only time she heard him play. 

“He was the greatest pianist of his time,” Jaime agrees with genuine sadness. “And a good man.”

“Were you close?” Brienne asks hesitantly, because she was the one who had proofed Jaime’s program bio, but that simply said “ _trained under Arthur Dayne”_ and gave nothing more away.

“He was the first person who ever saw me as a player in my own right,” Jaime says, as if that explained everything – and maybe it did, to him. “He was an excellent teacher. I kept in touch with his sister, after the stroke, and visited a few times, but I’m not sure if that was cruelty or kindness; Ashara liked me to play for him, and I can only imagine how frustrating he must have found it, to not be able to critique my every note.”

“My old teacher is still on Tarth, near where my father lives,” Brienne offers. “I visit whenever I’m home. He can’t really play any more – rheumatoid arthritis – and he claims listening is enough, but I’m not sure I believe him.”

They sit in silence for a beat, staring down at their own hands and trying not to contemplate a day they might fail. 

“You know, he used to get me to tell him stories,” Brienne continues, forcing a more cheerful note into her voice. “If I was sad, or frustrated, or angry, if a lesson wasn’t going well, he’d get me to tell him a story and he’d play it while I spoke. Never the same melody twice. The stories weren’t any good, but his music made them…more. I think that’s what did it for me, really. I couldn’t imagine ever doing anything else, after that.”

“It was Chopin for me,” Jaime confesses, and there’s something in his voice, his gaze; something so sincere and intense and quiet, that Brienne finds herself blushing. She has seen Jaime play, of course, both in person and on screen; his technical flare and mastery are undeniable, but this was something different. “My father took us to hear Gerold Hightower play; it was one of his last performances, but you wouldn’t have known it, to hear him. My sister…the romantics were never her thing, as a singer, but I always loved them.”

His eyes had gone distant as he spoke, focused on something far away and long ago, and it’s only when a customer several tables over laughs, load and obnoxious and cutting through the quiet air like a knife, that they both come back to themselves with a jump.

“Did you grow up on Tarth then?” Jaime asks with apparent sincerity, his tone bright and business-like again. “I’ve never been.”

“There’s not much to go for, unless you live there,” Brienne shrugs. “We get birders, but it’s too far out of the way to be worth the journey for most.”

“It’s an island, you must have beaches and sea. Don’t people call it the Sapphire Isle?”

“Not people who actually live there,” Brienne laughs; it’s always seemed like a ridiculous moniker to her, much as she loves her childhood home. “There’s sea and sand enough, and mountains and woods and towns and villages. It’s…it’s just Tarth. It’s home, you know?”

Jaime shrugs like maybe he doesn’t know, which, well, maybe he doesn’t. His program biography reads like a geography lesson, and for all that Brienne might envy him his training, his skills, his opportunities, she can’t bring herself to begrudge her home.

“How did you end up up here then? We’re a long way from Tarth.”

Brienne shrugs, uneasy; they’re straying dangerously close to territory she has no intention of straying into, no matter how congenial the air between them. “I met Catelyn through my previous job; when that role ended she offered me a position here.”

Jaime’s watching her with one eyebrow raised and she can see the questions queuing up on his tongue, and then the waitress is there, clearing their plates and offering them more drinks, and by the time she’s left the moment has passed and the conversation, thankfully, moves on.

* * *

She sleeps badly that night, tossing and turning fruitlessly, and she’s short-tempered the next day, burying herself in busy work and snapping at anyone who interrupts. She ploughs through a week’s worth of paperwork in a morning and blinks, bleary with surprise, when Sansa comes by her office to collect her for their standing lunch date. The warmer weather has tempted half the woodwind section outside, and there are still enough students around that the grassy quad is busy with noise and activity, and so her own distraction is, thankfully, far less noticeable than it might have been had it been their usual trio of just herself, Sansa and Margaery. 

She can’t put a name to it, exactly, the nervous, jumpy feeling she’s woken up with. It had been a strange afternoon, yes, but not a _bad_ one, and that’s…well, that’s good, really. It’s just disconcerting, to have to reconsider your own preconception of someone. As if one evening congenially discussing a shared interest is even enough to warrant such a thing.

Still, there’s enough going on that Sansa never has the opportunity to ask about how Brienne spent her weekend, which is more than she had hoped for. She doesn’t lie to Sansa, and she doesn’t like that her first thought is that she should. Her loyalty to Catelyn, and by extension her family, is absolute.

But. She’d had a nice evening. There was no great scandal in that, no reason for her to feel so jumpy and out of sorts when Gilly, the second clarinet, mentions Jaime by name in part of a larger anecdote, but she does. And she had no idea what that means. 

It doesn’t matter; it had been a one-off, of course. She should just put it out of her head completely.

* * *

Except, somehow, it isn’t a one-off at all. Jaime’s first masterclass is a few days later; Brienne quietly watches proceedings from her corner as Catelyn had requested. It’s goes, overall, despite the tittering group of string and wind students clustered at the back of the hall, putting off the piano students who were actually meant to be there. But Jaime ignores them, or maybe doesn’t even notice them at all, moving from student to student with a friendly smile, calming nerves with his easy manner. 

It lasts until the last student has finally left, door shut firmly behind them, and Jaime sinks onto the piano bench with a weary sigh, running a hand through his hair.

“I hate these things,” he confesses, glancing over to where Brienne is picking up her bag and jacket, ready to slip out. She hadn’t realised he’d even noted her presence.

“You do?” she asks, surprised, and then adding, begrudgingly, “You’re very good at them.”

“You think?” Jaime’s tone is rueful, but he seems cheered by her words. “Well that’s something then. I need a drink after all that.” He stands and starts to move towards the door, glancing back when he realises she isn’t following. 

“I need to go back to my office,” Brienne objects, thrown both by his assumption and his sudden enthusiasm, though in truth there is nothing needing her attention that can’t wait until the morning, and it is late enough in the day that Catelyn won’t be expecting her to stay on.

“Now? Really? Come on Tarth, surely Catelyn can spare you for one evening. You could even claim it as a work expense; she’s obviously got you babysitting me anyway.”

Brienne reddens; she’d thought she was being more subtle than that. 

“One drink,” she concedes, because it’s late and it’s been a long week and, actually, the idea of sitting in the evening sun with a drink and – loathe as she is to admit it – reasonable company is a beguiling one. But, “Don’t call me Tarth.”

He laughs at that, for some reason, and harries her out into the world.

* * *

So that’s the second time. The third time, she’s in one of the smaller practice rooms with Pod. He’s technically graduated, as of three weeks ago, but Brienne has accompanied him for every audition and recital he’s done through his time at the Royal Northern, ever since she’d first met him as a nervous, gangly teenager who talked to her feet rather than her face. She’d been equal parts touched that he’d requested her help preparing for his first auditions as a professional musician, and surprised at the realisation of how much she would miss him, once he was gone. 

They’re running through the [final piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwV4O8Fm_ao) when the door bursts open and Jaime falls into the room; whatever he was about to say dies on his lips when Brienne glares over the piano lid at him. Pod fumbles but keeps going, and Brienne only has to rein in the tempo a little bit to stop him hurrying through the final passages; it’s a far cry from the uneasy first year student who had quailed at any form of unexpected audience, and she has to hide a smile of warm pride at how far he’s come. 

“That was very good,” Jaime says when Pod has finished. Pod ducks his head awkwardly, running an anxious hand along the smooth wood of his bassoon.

“I’ll see you on Friday,” Brienne says to him gently, and Pod sends her a look of grateful relief, heading over to the side of the room to pack his instrument away. Brienne turns her focus back to Jaime, still lounging near the doorway, watching Pod avoid looking at him with an odd smile on his face. “Can I help you?”

Jaime blinks back over at her. “I was looking for you; there was a child in your office mutilating stationary who said I’d find you here.”

“Rickon isn’t a child, he’s sixteen,” Brienne counters automatically; the youngest Stark is spending his summer earning minimum wage as an office assistant, a situation that no one is particularly happy about. Especially since it means that Jaime’s search for her will reach, if not Catelyn’s ears, then certainly Sansa’s.

Jaime waves this objection off, unconcerned. “Robb didn’t want me for this rehearsal this afternoon after all, something about the second violins and bloody [Tchaik five](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYTUtDjK2Kc), I didn’t ask. So I came to bother you instead.”

Brienne eyes him dubiously, but his face is open and bright, no hint of a secret agenda. But then, she’s thought that before. 

She’s saved from having to respond by Pod, lurking near the doorway, who clears his throat anxiously. She swivels her attention back to him, but his eyes are fixed on Jaime.

“I…er, that is, Mr Lannister, ser,”

His face is red and he’s twisting the strap of his bassoon case in his hand. Jaime looks over at him with what Brienne suspects he thought was a kind smile; he mostly looks impatient.

“Your brother,” Pod starts, falters, swallows, and tries again, “that is, next time you speak to your brother, could you…could you tell him Podrick Payne says hello, please, and that I graduated this summer, and thank you?”

Jaime raises a single artful eyebrow. “Of course,” he agrees when no more information proves forthcoming. “Anything else?”

“No, thank you, ser,” Pod stammers, still staring at the floor with a look of resigned embarrassment on his face. “Just…just that I spoke to you here, and thank him for me.”

Brienne keeps her face carefully blank when Jaime tilts his head slightly in her direction, amused confusion on his face; she’s too fond of Pod to laugh, no matter how much she wants too. 

Pod makes an awkward jerk of his shoulders, sends one final, anxious look in Brienne’s direction, and hurries from the room, tripping over his feet and jerking the door shut behind him with too much force. 

“I didn’t know we’d agreed to see other people, Tarth,” Jaime complains the minute they’re alone. “I thought your job was minding me.”

“I’m not your babysitter,” Brienne snaps, instantly riled. “And my name is Brienne.”

“Obviously not just my babysitter,” Jaime agrees easily, unphased. “You’re an accompanist too.”

“Not often,” Brienne admits cautiously. “But I help where I can, and I’ve worked with Pod more than most.”

“What actually is your job description here?” Jaime presses, his voice curious and just a little incredulous.

“I’m Catelyn’s assistant,” Brienne says primly. “In that I assist her, however she needs. It’s mostly admin, but accompanying, page turning, minding visiting musicians.”

“You’re very loyal,” Jaime observes, and what can she say to that, really? How can she even begin to explain to this man what she owes, to the Starks in general and Catelyn in particular? 

Some of her discomfort must show, because after another awkward pause Jaime changes tact.

“He was an eloquent young chap, the bassoonist.”

“Pod’s a very good musician,” she says quickly, defensive. “When he doesn’t let his nerves get the better of him. How does he know your brother?”

“No idea. Ex-student, maybe, Tyrion was a teacher. And I didn’t disagree,” Jaime points out. “But if you’re going to yell at me about it, can we do it with food? I skipped lunch and I’m starving.”

* * *

Brienne had been right to fear Rickon’s inability to keep his mouth shut about, well, anything. Sansa doesn’t waste any time at lunch the next day; Brienne hasn’t even peeled the wrapper off her sandwich before she and Margaery start their interrogation. 

“I don’t trust him,” Sansa says when Brienne’s finished, frowning over her sandwich. Brienne had downplayed it as much as she could; been honest, really, because one drink and two dinners was nothing _to_ downplay. Summer has finally well and truly arrived in the North – and Brienne loves her adopted home, she does, but a part of her will forever miss Tarth’s long warm springs and temperate summers, compared to the harsh abruptness of Northern weather – and so they’re eating outside again, sitting in the shade of an old weirwood tree. Brienne’s just grateful it’s only the three of them this time, there are some things she does not need to go into with half the orchestra present.

“You don’t trust him because your mum doesn’t trust him,” Margaery points out, because Margaery is Margaery and so Margery can. The first year Margaery had joined the Royal Northern Orchestra Brienne had wasted a lot of time thinking about how much easier her life might have been if she had been Margaery instead of Brienne. She’s mostly over it, now, but every now and then it still rankles.

“And my mum is a very good judge of character,” Sansa says promptly, unruffled. “Don’t you agree, Brienne?”

And Brienne does agree, because, well, she does. And yet…

“He seems genuine, though,” she says slowly, carefully; this feels important, somehow. “If there’s a catch, I can’t figure it out. I don’t think he means anything by it, I think he’s just…lonely.”

There was a time when she’d been naive in her judgement of other people, too trusting. Margaery had once said that she’d overcorrected, since, but Brienne is happy this way. But still, she recognises that sort of loneliness in a way that the Sansa Starks and Margaery Tyrells of the world would never have cause to; though, admittedly, until the last couple of weeks she wouldn’t have expected it from a Jaime Lannister either.

“I was worried,” Margaery admits, “when Robb told us he was going to be in residence this summer. I worked with Cersei once, years ago, and it was a nightmare. But he’s been brilliant. Rehearsal has been fun, mostly.”

“Robb likes him,” concedes Sansa dubiously, like she wants to question her brother’s opinion but can’t quite bring herself to. “Jaime listens to him, not like some soloists. And when he suggests something different, it’s usually a good idea.”

“But you still don’t trust him,” Margery teases.

“I think he’s a professional, and a very talented musician,” tempers Sansa, flushing. “He’s still a Lannister.”

And that’s the crux of it really, Brienne thinks to herself as she walks back to her office half an hour later. He’s friendly, and funny, and talented, and she does not have so many friends in the world that she can readily discount making another. But he’s a Lannister - _Jaime_ Lannister, no less.

Brienne had been a child when she first heard his name. He’d stormed to first place in the WBC Young Musician of the Year, barely thirteen, angel-faced with his mop of blond hair and sheepish smile, playing [Rachmaninoff](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaivbBUHsqI) like a pianist twice his age. Half of Westeros had fallen in love with him that summer, and Brienne, watching through her father’s grainy television screen, had been one of them. For a season her eight-year-old heart had been his; but then Galladon had died, and everything, even the piano, had lost its lustre for a time.

But the rest of Westeros had adored their golden-haired prodigy and his sweet-voiced sister. For five years they had been the darlings of the classical music scene, touring first Westeros and then Essos, releasing four albums and playing the Proms three times. He’d been welcomed into the Royal Academy with open arms and a general expectation of greatness.

No one knew exactly what had happened, during his final year of music college; there were rumours, conjecture, gossip, but very little in the way of fact. Aerys Targaryen, lauded conductor and principal of the Royal Academy, had for the first time in his career agreed to conduct a student’s final recital. That he and Jaime rowed during the final rehearsal was fact, witnessed by an orchestra over sixty strong; others later swore to hearing a second argument through the closed doors of Targaryen’s office. Jaime’s failure to show up to the final concert, and Aerys’ subsequent, humiliated, breakdown, had been witnessed by an audience of several hundred, and then the rest of Westeros when a video recording was leaked days later. 

Aerys hasn’t worked since; rumour had it he was sequestered in a private facility somewhere on Essos for the artistically fragile. And Jaime Lannister earnt a reputation for being dramatic and difficult, and in the decade and change since then whatever shine he had as a boy has well and truly tarnished. 

Brienne knows all of this; knows too of the difficulties Tywin Lannister caused Ned and Catelyn when they first took over the Royal Northern, and then again later when they established a permeant orchestra alongside it. Knows of Catelyn’s anger and hurt at the farcical _In Memoriam_ concert Tywin promoted and profited from, never mind that not a single dragon from it has ever made its way north to the causes Ned had actually cared about. Knows of the emails Jaime himself had sent in the aftermath, the threats carefully worded but there when you read between the lines, that a contract is a contract, verbal or written, and he expected them to honour it. The Lannister’s reputation was enough to fill in the rest.

But then Jaime, just Jaime, appears halfway through her Sunday afternoon practice and teases her all the way through a battered copy of a [Faure duet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KywhPwmS5Gg), because, he reasons, if she’ll play with Pod then there’s no reason she shouldn’t play with _him_ , too, and none of it makes any sense.

* * *

The first summer concert featuring Jaime is a week or so later. Brienne hadn’t been in rehearsals, though she’s heard occasional strains of [Grieg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Yoyz6_Los) floating around the halls as the orchestra rehearsed, and once or twice seen Jaime scratching at a score of his own. She and Catelyn watch from the stalls, Catelyn’s twitching fingers the only outward display of her nerves as her eyes flicker from Robb on the conductor’s podium to Sansa in the second flute chair to the wings, where Brienne knows the piano stands, ready to be bought on stage in the interval for Jaime’s performance in the second half. Brienne isn’t entirely sure what Catelyn is worrying about – or even if the older woman knows herself. It’s unlikely that Jaime would sabotage his own performance just to spite the Starks, even if his father might have wished it.

Whatever it was, Catelyn’s fears prove unfounded; the audience finish the night with a standing ovation, with Robb and Jaime shaking hands and backslapping so frequently and enthusiastically that even Brienne is almost fooled into believing them friends. 

The orchestra pour into their usual pub afterwards. Brienne joins them, as she often does, though Catelyn does not. She would have done, Brienne knows, when Ned was still alive and Catelyn sat first desk with the cellos, but it’s a rarity, now. Brienne isn’t sure if it’s a professional or personal caution that stops her; maybe a bit of both. 

To her surprise she finds Jaime and Robb crowded together at the bar, heads bowed close in conversation; maybe the show on stage hadn’t been all performance after all. Not wanting to disturb either of them – and not wanting to examine why, exactly, her first thought had been to seek out Jaime’s company when there were so many others around she knew so much better – she takes her habitual corner seat and sips on her drink. She isn’t technically on the clock, but she knows Catelyn likes her to keep a clear head and a watchful eye at these events; post performance adrenaline, alcohol, and emotionally overwrought musicians could make for a heady combination.

When Jaime joins her he is well-oiled with jubilation and beer. He flops onto the bench seat beside her and throws an easy arm around her shoulders.

“What did you think, Tarth?” he asks with a broad smile; Brienne doesn’t think she’d ever seen him so genuinely relaxed.

“Who says I was there?” she points out with a smile of her own; he’s hard to resist like this, she can feel her own guard slipping, and the urge to tease is irresistible.

Jaime snorts. “Catelyn was there. Ergo, so were you. Her shadow. And I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist hearing me play.”

Brienne splutters at sheer audacity of the man – never mind that, actually, professional obligation or not, she would never have passed up on the chance to hear a musician of Jaime’s calibre perform - but she’s saved from having to formulate her objections into actual words by Margaery plopping down into the seat opposite with Sansa besides her. 

“Don’t kid yourself, Lannister, it’s nothing to do with you. I don’t think Brienne’s missed a Winterfell concert in…how long have you been with us now Brienne, three years?”

“Four and a half,” corrects Brienne, embarrassed. “And I’ve missed a few.”

One, actually, only one, but that’s not something she wants to talk about, especially not with Margaery and Jaime. Margaery knows a little, of course, the bet was still strong gossip currency amongst the orchestra when she’d joined the year after it had all gone down, but as far as Brienne knows it’s never spread through the wider musical community; she’s too irrelevant for that level of rumour. Whatever explanations the rest of the profession had come up with for why Ned Stark had suddenly sacked three players with prejudice, she has no idea.

“Brienne never misses a concert, and she never drinks a drop afterwards unless we beg her,” continues Sansa, eyes dancing with mirth. “She’s our minder.”

“That is also not true!” Brienne protests, smiling at their teasing. 

“I thought you were my minder!” Jaime exclaims, indignant again, though the effect is somewhat spoilt by the half glass of beer that he manages to tip over his own sleave. “Oh, bugger.”

“Here,” says Margaery, pushing one of the glasses she had been carrying over to him along with a pile of napkins. “This was for you anyway.”

“And Brienne,” adds Sansa, matching the motion with one of her own. “Mum’s orders.”

It’s a good evening. Sansa and Margaery are always good company, and despite their conversation the previous week, they both seem to genuinely enjoy Jaime’s presence. Sansa catches Brienne’s eye at one point, when he’d disappeared to the bar, and some of her confusion must be showing on her face because the younger girl flushes slightly.

“He’s alright,” she admits, glancing round as if to ensure no one else is near enough to hear her. “For a Lannister, at least. I’m glad he came.”

And that seems to be the shared opinion of most of the orchestra. Jaime flits from group to group over the evening, buying drinks, shaking hands, exchanging jokes, and to Brienne’s careful eye the orchestra seem sincere in their smiles; even Tormund, the enormous hairy percussionist from North of the Wall who viewed Winterfell as southern and anyone from below the Neck as dubiously exotic, seems genuinely pleased to see him, though Jaime looks a bit cross-eyed after that particular backslap.

He returns frequently to his spot at Brienne’s table, where Sansa and Margaery are keeping up a steady enough stream of drinks that she’s starting to feel warmly tipsy. It’s only when Jaime tries to take his seat and instead ends up sprawled across her lap that she realises how drunk he is.

“Hi,” he beams up at her from his new horizontal position.

“Hello,” she frowns in reply, her alcohol dulled brain needing a moment to deal with a lap full of Jaime Lannister.

“You have incredibly blue eyes,” says Jaime gravely, a frown of concentration on his face.

Margaery’s snort of laughter saves Brienne from having to think up some reply to that; instead she takes Jaime by the shoulders and hauls him back up into a sitting position. “I think you’ve had enough,” she says to Jaime, who is looking a bit dazed to find himself back vertical. 

“Are you walking me home?”

“I’m walking your hands home; the rest is your own responsibility.”

The cool night air has a somewhat sobering effect on him; enough that he stops, takes several deep breathes, and then bends double, hands on his knees. 

“I’m drunk!” he says in tones of wounded surprise. 

“That’s what happens when you try to match drinks with the brass section,” explains Brienne drily, rubbing a soothing hand down his back. “Be sick if you need to, you’ll feel better for it.”

But Jaime shakes his head resolutely and straightens back up. “It’s not that bad. And it wasn’t the brass players who were the problem; your percussionist is lethal.”

“Tormund’s from the Wild North, you should be flattered that he agreed to drink with you at all. He doesn’t trust southerners.”

“He seems fond enough of you,” counters Jaime. “Kept calling you his woman.”

Brienne rolls her eyes. “I’m not a southerner, I’m an islander. It’s different. And he means nothing by it. It’s an old joke.” 

Jaime’s watching her, his eyes disconcertingly sharp. The night air is warm and quiet, the streets empty apart from their own footsteps, and she’s not going to tell that story, not tonight. 

“You played well,” she says hurridly, her tongue feeling too large for her mouth and the words tumbling over themselves. “I didn’t say, earlier. But you did.”

He beams at her; he’s like a puppy, overcome with pleasure at the smallest praise. As if her opinion matters to a player of his standing. They wind their way back to Jaime’s hotel, bickering lightly about why _she_ is seeing _him_ safely home and not vice versa, and part on the street outside the hotel lobby, the awning lights turning his hair to spun gold. It’s another couple of miles back to her own small house, and she spends the journey determinedly not thinking about how much nicer it had been to walk with the back of Jaime’s hand repeatedly brushing her own. 

* * *

So it’s a good summer. Maybe it’s just having passed the first anniversary of Ned’s death, maybe it’s just the particularly fine weather, but everyone seems lighter, happier, that summer. Catelyn frets less and leaves work on time more; Robb becomes increasingly confident and self-assured in his own decisions. The orchestra’s summer program, though never as popular as the Proms in King’s Landing, is well received, and more than once Brienne finds herself shepherding Southern critics to their seats. 

And there’s Jaime, somehow, everywhere, enmeshed in every part of it. He’s hanging around her office on quiet afternoons, and waiting for her outside practice rooms after she’s finished rehearsal with whichever soloist has requested her, and on her sofa or in her garden on the days neither of them need to go into work. He’s dragging her to the Mikken to play the duets he keeps pulling out of nowhere. He’s beside her in the pub whenever the orchestra goes out en masse, and he’s across the table from her for dinners or drinks in the Red Lion, the little tucked away pub they had gone to that first night, whenever it’s just the two of them. 

It's fun. All of it, her job and her friends have always been too tightly entwined to parse one from the other, so that when one is going well they both are, and the whole summer is one long glorious high. 

And if Brienne thinks about it too closely, she is miserable. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise, really. Brienne knows herself – prides herself, secretly, on her own lack of self-delusion – and she knows her weakness all too well; a good-looking man who is kind to her. It’s no less pathetic for the repetition. She’d sworn never again, after Renly, but with Jaime, if anything, it’s even worse.

He’s just so _present._ Her life is suddenly full of him, no part spared his presence, and it’s perfect, and it’s overwhelming, and in a few weeks he’ll be gone and then his absence will be everywhere. She tries, just once, to pull back a little; works through her lunch breaks, ducks out of a few evenings at the pub, leaving him safe in the company of Margaery and an assortment of Starks, lies about plans when he suggests tries to bait her into joining him at the piano. By the end of the week he looks so confused and forlorn that Brienne can’t bring herself to carry it on any further, and resigns herself to the inevitable. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music in this chapter:  
> \- [My Grandfather's Clock; Song with Humerous Variations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwV4O8Fm_ao), by WH Foote. I very much doubt this is on any standard bassoon audition repertoire, but this is fiction and I could not pass up on the opportunity to slide it in here somewhere.  
> \- Tchaikovsky's [Fifth Symphony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYTUtDjK2Kc). I've no idea if the second violin part is particularly dastardly or not, but I spent a term listening to my then-conductor berate them about it, and it obviously stuck XD  
> \- Rachmaninoff's [Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaivbBUHsqI). Freddy Kempf, who is playing in the linked video, won the BBC Young Musician of the Year playing this, aged 14. Jaime obviously had to better him.  
> \- Faure's [Dolly Suite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KywhPwmS5Gg)  
> \- Grieg's [Piano Concerto in A Minor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Yoyz6_Los). Probably one of the most famous openings in classical music, which doesn't make it any less fantastic. 
> 
> And a few other notes and clarifications:  
> \- Hanon refers to The Virtuoso Pianist, a book of technical exercises used by pianists for over 100 years. It concentrates heavily on physical strength and drilling, and there is a fair amount of dispute about it's merits and drawbacks.  
> \- WBC Young Musician is the Westeros Broadcasting Corporation Young Musician of the Year competition, directly modelled off the [BBC equivalent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Young_Musician) of the same name in the UK.  
> \- "The Proms" are likewise the Westerosi version of [the Proms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proms) which take place in London each summer. 
> 
> Brienne's story about her piano teacher "playing her stories" is directly lifted from my own experience; my piano teacher was an eccentric South African who would try to hold my interest in lessons by having me tell him stories while he accompanied them with an improvised soundtrack. My imagination was extensive but I never managed to catch him out.


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